Egypt’s Damanhour prosecution ordered Thursday the detention for four days pending investigations of four of the crew of a boat for illegal migrants that capsized in the Mediterranean Wednesday.
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Those who chose to risk the risky journey are often fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Egypt is hosting almost 262,000 registered refugees, mostly from Sudan, Syria and Libya, with the number of unregistered refugees believed to be much higher, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. Fishing boats in the vicinity were the first to provide help.
The deadly accident comes months after the EU’s border agency Frontex warned that growing numbers of migrants bound for Europe were turning to Egypt as a departure point for the unsafe sea journey.
The boat had been carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants, officials said. Neighbouring Libya is still the starting point for most efforts to reach Italy by boat from north Africa but, after years of lawless chaos in the region, a rising number of people are setting out from Egypt instead.
Judicial and security officials said four alleged smugglers had been detained, and accused of involuntary manslaughter and human trafficking.
Numerous survivors in the latest tragedy were detained briefly by police, before they were released. Why are you not allowing them to go and get the bodies? “The boat is meant to hold 200, and they put 400 in it”. The Egyptian army regularly arrests dozens of illegal immigrants of different nationalities in light of complaints from the Italian authorities that the number of immigrants arriving in Italy from the Egyptian coast illegally has doubled.
Rescuers have brought more than 150 people ashore and recovered 43 bodies, including several women and a child, and hundreds more are missing, according to local officials and news agencies said.
“If this man wasn’t there, if this man wasn’t sent by God, the entire group of migrants would have been dead by now”, said Abdel-Sattar.
“There is no way to end this except by uprooting its causes; and this will be by reaching political agreements, not by closing borders”, he said. “There were many in the boat’s hold who died”.
It is not yet confirmed by officials but the capsized boat was believed to be going to Italy.
The U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimated that the boat was packed with some 450 people, while the state news agency MENA said earlier that the number might be as high as 600. At least 10 women and two children were among the victims. “Those are dead, for sure”.
Mina Fawzi, 19, one of the survivors, said yesterday that there were already about 250 people on the boat when the smugglers brought along another 250.
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He said smugglers were charging migrants around 35,000 pounds (nearly $4,000) each for the perilous journey to Europe. “They all died”, the 28-year-old said. The boat flipped one hour after it took off from the shore.
